currently families get a $1,000 per child tax credit. Now, the CBO baseline assumes that credit drops to $500 per child in 2011. So if the Obama Administration keeps the credit at $1,000 – which means the family pays the same as they always have – it counts as a “tax cut.” I know you understand all this, but it drives me batty how intellectually dishonest the mainstream media has been in covering the tax issue in this election.

ever since 2004, we have been hearing about “red vs. blue” (leave Halo out of this!). Some try to cast it in fight between uneducated country bumpkins, bitterly clinging to “guns and religion” vs. the urban city dwellers who are more “educated”, more liberal etc.

The reality is that in the “flyover country”, those small towns, people are very conservative.

A township that digs its own wells and plows its own roads is less susceptible to the beguiling notion that everything necessary in life is a mysterious “government service” to be provided by faceless bureaucrats far away.
—Cocoon: The Return Mark Steyn

When I lived in New Mexico, I saw many examples of government waste. Schools would want for basic repairs by some sate legislator would push through “pork barrel” projects to benefit the businesses that paid for his election. And yet in 1994 Gary Johnson was elected as governor. Democrats and many liberals thought that he was a fat cat trying to enrich his company Big J. Others feared that he would slash education.

In fact the state lottery blossomed during his terms, sending hundreds of students to sate colleges and universities. As the child of county and government employees, I was waiting for the ax to fall, it never did. Instead Santa Fe focused on the business of running the state.

The exception however was counties, school districts and cities run by democrats. Huge cuts in education, city services and slashed budgets occurred when they tried to practice liberail policies just like their East or Left, er West coast counterparts. Even funnier, several
counties, school districts and cities get steady paycheck from the Department of Defense. White Sands leases land just north of the missile range, enabling ranchers and the local school to get by financially each year. DOD, Dept. of energy, Sandia, Los Alamos each lease or rent land and services all over New Mexico. The thanks they get? Environmentalist wackos and anti-war nuts protesting at their gates. Politicians taking about cutting the defense budget or closing nuke plants. But with out that money, their towns would be bankrupt. They aren’t elite, their idiots.

The 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge with the standard military ball bullet (NATO: SS109; U.S.: M855) will penetrate approximately 15 to 20 inches (38 to 50 cm) into soft tissue in ideal circumstances. As with all spitzer shaped projectiles it is prone to yaw in soft tissue. However, at impact velocities above roughly 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s), it may yaw and then fragment at the cannelure (the groove around the cylinder of the bullet). These fragments can disperse through flesh and bone, inflicting additional internal injuries.[1] Fragmentation, if and when it occurs, seems to impart much greater damage to tissue than bullet dimensions and velocities would suggest. This fragmentation effect is highly dependent on velocity, and therefore barrel length: short-barreled rifles generate less muzzle velocity and therefore rounds lose effectiveness at much shorter ranges than longer-barreled rifles.

The
Hague Conventions of 1899 banned “bullets that easily expand or flatten in the body”. So the 5.56mm was created as a workaround. It ricochets when it hits anything solid. Like trees, rocks, or bone. My Drill Sgt at For Jackson related the following: During a life fire exercise a soldier had his weapon pointed at the ground. He was at the low-ready position (weapon in hand, buttstock on chest weapon pointed down) but his weapon was not on safe. His finger was not supposed to be on the trigger but it was. He accidentally shot at the ground. The bullet ricocheted off the ground, a tree and a log to wizz past the Drill Sgt’s head. He told us this so that we would respect the weapon and the bullets it fired.

Small caliber, low recoil, good penetration. That is the 5.56mm. However due to the M-4 (14 inches) having a shorter barrel than the M-16 (20 inches) muzzle velocity is lost. When that goes down penetration goes with it.

Regarding terminal performance, there is no doubt the M855 ball round is quite lethal out of the M4 carbine. However, many of the 3-7th Cav’s veteran NCOs with heavy combat experience in Iraq wished it packed more punch. Fighting room to room, engagement distances are up close. In such an environment, where the insurgents they face may be doped up on narcotics, they wanted a threat to drop instantly–not stay on his feet for a couple seconds still capable of triggering off another burst.

“I shot an insurgent in the stomach with a 7.62mm M14, and it buckled him over,” Sgt. John Gibson commented. “Another one I shot with the 5.56 M4 took three rounds to put him down. Sure, he died, but I wished he’d gone down faster.”

In the Special interest mag “Book Of the AR-15” (out now), Mr. Fortier raises a good argument against replacing the M-4. We are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Replacing rifles and ammo during a confilct would be a mistake. Sure there is the 6.8mm SPC or the 6.5 Grendel. But you have to mass produce the rifles and bullets. During the Cold War, having the 7.62 M-60 machine gun and 5.56 M-16’s was a nightmare, logistically. With National Guard and Reserve units, bringing in a new caliber would be a worse nightmare.

However, arguments can be made about replacing the rifle itself.

The HK 416.

and again in German:

It looks like the Army just might be serious about replacing the M-4. And this time all eyes are on the Army to see what they pick.

Notice:

This site is in no way affiliated with the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Fort Bliss, White Sands Missile Range, or any other government agency. Nothing said herein should be considered to have any official sanction by those agencies.
You Mileage may vary, dates in calender are closer than they appear.